“Salability defines what is good,” Masumoto said. “And the easiest way to sell product is to
make it a commodity defined by the visual. What I am focusing on instead is peaches with special
needs. These are peaches that don’t look like the perfect peach but have just as much, if not more,
value.”

Beth Mitcham, a post-harvest researcher at the University of California-Davis, said the consumer
preference for uniform produce is shaped partly by marketing and partly by government regulations
that stipulate that all commercially grown produce be at least 90 percent blemish-free.

She places most of the blame on us, the consumers.

“Research shows that food gets rejected at point of sale if it’s bruised,” she said, “not if it’s
unripe or has poor flavor.”

Masumoto, though, hopes to see a growing market for his produce.

He is thrilled, he said, that some food and cooking magazines are using images of produce that
isn’t perfect.

John Navazio, a plant breeder in Washington state, also sees a shift in produce selection.

“We still want beautiful food,” he said, “but, as we understand the story behind that food, we
begin to look for a different kind of beauty.”

Navazio began his career at a commercial seed company and now works for the Organic Seed
Alliance, a nonprofit organization that helps farmers develop seeds for organic farming.

After decades of preferential breeding for yield, transportability and uniformity, he said, our
standard produce has lost much of its flavor and, in some cases, some of its nutrients.

Initially, his goal was to improve upon the commercial breeds. But in 2002, when he started
working at the seed alliance, he realized that most modern crop varieties are unsuitable for
organic farming.

“The available commercial seed stock was developed for a high-input industrial model where the
land is flat, irrigated and treated with pesticides and fertilizers,” he said.

“Organic fruits and vegetables need to resist pests naturally by having more genetic diversity
within each breed and by having a structure that wards off pests. They also need to be great
nutrient scavengers, because their fertility is not handed to them on a platter.”

Navazio realized that he needed to revive characteristics that had been lost with modern
breeding.

For example, the Chantenay carrot has a wild, bushy top and a blunt root. Its top fights weeds,
and its root is adapted to grab nutrients from soil that is less processed and improved.

What’s more, root vegetables and most other plants synthesize more anti-oxidants and more
flavorful sugars and tannins in response to stress, casting even the insect nibbles and sun spots
in a better light.

“Just like every face tells a story,” Navazio said, “you can look at every fruit and vegetable,
and learn about the life and environment that it came from.”

Daphne Miller, a family physician and an author, most recently wrote Farmacology: What
Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing.